Saurabh Shroff

equities | golf | ex-Director @bofa … tweets are not financial advice.

[Peter H. Diamandis, MD @PeterDiamandis]

Comfort is the most expensive thing you can buy, unfortunately it comes at the cost of your potential!

[Anand Shah @Anand_shah07]

A Decade of Ignorance: What the Market Really Teaches You

"Allow a decade of ignorance. If you survive it, everything changes."

I’ve come to believe that the most valuable education in markets doesn’t come from books, business schools, or balance sheets. It comes from survival. Ten years in the market will teach you more through pain, misjudgment, and slow realizations than any classroom ever could.

This isn't an argument against learning the fundamentals. You absolutely need to know how to read financial statements, understand return ratios, interpret cash flows, and build a thesis. But what no one tells you—what no spreadsheet can teach—is that all of this is just the starting point.

The real curriculum begins when your conviction is shattered.

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The Illusion of Control

When you begin, you feel in control. You’ve got tools. You run DCF models. You can calculate working capital cycles in your sleep. You read annual reports like novels. Maybe you even visit factories or meet management.

You believe that if you just know enough, you can predict outcomes.

But the market humbles everyone.

A promoter with a polished story disappears. A “deep value” stock gets cheaper—and stays cheap. A perfect-looking balance sheet hides a rot you couldn’t see. That’s when you realize: the market doesn’t reward knowledge; it tests judgment. And judgment only comes after failure.

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Seeing the Unseen

Over time, your eyes shift. You no longer read management commentary at face value. You watch how they speak. Who speaks. Who avoids questions. You begin to pick up the unsaid—the hesitation behind optimism, the gap between what’s promised and what’s implied.

Balance sheets become living documents. Ratios are no longer just math—they’re symptoms of behavior. Why are receivables rising? Why did inventory spike this quarter? Is the debt strategic or desperate?

These questions don’t come from textbooks. They come from scars.

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Markets as Mirrors of Emotion

What’s most surprising is how much investing becomes about people. Not just the companies you analyze, but the market itself. The collective mood swings. The overreactions. The euphoria, the panic, the boredom.

Eventually, you realize: price is not truth. It’s emotion. And those who succeed are often the ones who can sit still while others react, or act decisively while others freeze.

You stop trying to outsmart the market. You start trying to understand it.

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If You Survive

If you allow yourself a decade of ignorance—if you survive it—something shifts.

You speak less. You observe more. You become comfortable saying, “I don’t know.” You stop chasing the next big thing. You start appreciating the value of discipline, patience, and alignment.

You may even stop calling yourself an “investor.” You just… show up. Listen. Think. Wait. Act with conviction when it counts.

And you learn to live with uncertainty—not as a threat, but as the background music of the market.

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The Invisible Curriculum

This is the part no one tells you about. The real learning is quiet. It happens in your notes, in your losses, in the subtle shifts in how you process information. It’s not dramatic. It’s cumulative.

Wisdom in the markets doesn’t come from winning. It comes from losing, reflecting, and continuing.

So allow yourself that decade of ignorance.

Because what the market ultimately teaches you is not just how to make money—but how to think, feel, and decide when no one else can show you the way.

[Saurabh Shroff @SaurabhShroff]

@the_chart_life Works with individual stocks too or just the indices?

[TheLiverDoc™ @theliverdoc]

I am a Hepatologist.

Arguably, I care for the sickest group of patients in medical practice – end stage liver disease.

I see death almost every day in my ICU.

Some are natural deaths, leading to multiple organ failure triggered by a failing liver.

Some are decided. The family decided to pull the plug. They decide it was time to let go.

And every time, I see the heart rate drop, the blood pressure fall and the electrocardiogram go flat.

And I wonder. What goes on inside a dying brain?
Was it a small black hole, that gets bigger and bigger and then engulfs the field in darkness as the heart shuts down taking the brain away with it?

Or was it just all light at the end of the tunnel and then darkness, once the destination had reached?

A group of doctors did something strange. Something unimaginable.

And it led to them witnessing something melancholic, but beautiful.

They went inside an ICU. Saw that four patients were unconscious.

They were not clinically dead, yet. And not brain-dead. But were comatose.
They were kept alive by a machine that pumped oxygen into their lungs.
Three had brain injury due to cardiac arrest. One had haemorrhaged into the brain.

All were unresponsive for a very long time and sadly, the family decided to pull the plug on them.
To let them go away, peacefully.

But before they did that, the loving family did something bittersweet. They signed a document which was made by the group of doctors, allowing them to study their beloveds’ dying brain.

The group was led by Dr Jimo Borjigin of the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, University of Michigan School of Medicine, Ann Arbor at Michigan.

The doctors fitted machines to the heart and brain of the dying patients and then withdrew their life support by removing the breathing tube.

Immediately after the tube was removed, the brain activity did not show anything different.
But as the brain got closer to death, about 300 seconds before death, a power surge. And it occurred in the regions of the brain which was associated with conscious experience. Like the dying was suddenly yearning to live.

And make no mistake, these were not “some bursts” of electrical activity that happens when the brain cells withered away without oxygen. This was a special kind of activity.

These power surges increased connectivity in a region in the brain called posterior cortical “hot zone” – an area crucial for conscious perception – when it came to just before dying, the brain cells were having a cross-talk, not dying away into oblivion.

They were passing final messages to each other within the regions of the brain, while the physical body lay, limp and motionless.

And the doctors were heartbroken – because the final electrical pattern of surge that the dying brain was showing was the similar to those seen in dreaming humans.

All the patients in the study died.
But before they died, they taught us something.
That even in death, our minds are resilient.
That we clutch at only everything that is good.

What were they dreaming of?
A husband, about his loving wife?
A mother, her children?
Children, their parents?
Or maybe a scene from a movie that changed you?
Or a song under a starry sky?
Or a pet who loved you unconditionally?
We will never know.

But know this, even in death, the mind conquers – with dreams and love, not nightmares and hate.

Remember, nothing perfect lasts forever, except in our memories.

Make good memories while living, so that we can re-live them in death.

Go hug you family, take your children for an ice cream. Walk your dog into the sunset.

Sources:
➡️"Surprising brain activity moments before death" by Dr. F Perry Wilson @fperrywilson via https://t.co/g2NmWlMrAs

➡️Research Article: Surge of neurophysiological coupling and connectivity of gamma oscillations in the dying human brain from @PNASNews https://t.co/YqvZIlDaxN

[Saurabh Shroff @SaurabhShroff]

@ChrisClickUp Template

[Saurabh Shroff @SaurabhShroff]

@Steelcase @Forbes Where do you rank for customer service? Probably bottom of the pile.

[Saurabh Shroff @SaurabhShroff]

Will the authorities do something about the quality of the roads and signage or just fine us for not wearing seatbelts! Is it not their responsibility to build safe roads?? https://t.co/hRoD2v5XGn

[Saurabh Shroff @SaurabhShroff]

@safalniveshak Excellently explained.

[Meeti Shroff-Shah @MeetiShroff]

The Telegraph Kolkatta says #thedeathofkirtikadakia is ‘unputdownable’ ⁦@BloomsburyIndia⁩

https://t.co/U8XDDUYWEP

[Saurabh Shroff @SaurabhShroff]

An excellent warning to ‘tip based’ investors…

[Golden State Warriors @warriors]

Steve Kerr on today's tragic shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

[Saurabh Shroff @SaurabhShroff]

Whatsapp forward…

[Saurabh Shroff @SaurabhShroff]

People are seeing a commodity bull market after so long that it appears even some market veterans are making the cardinal mistake of applying peak multiples to peak earnings…

[Saurabh Shroff @SaurabhShroff]

When there is no room for error,
bad things ‘tend’ to happen - cycle tops …

[Saurabh Shroff @SaurabhShroff]

A whole bunch of commodity stocks down 8-10% after the worrying news on China’s real estate sector. There is no margin of safety when peak multiples are applied to peak growth and peak margins.

[Rishi Gosalia @RishiGosalia]

Advice from Bezos that maybe relevant today. Credit @mastersinvest

[Saurabh Shroff @SaurabhShroff]

We could be witnessing the biggest diplomatic debacle of our generation… let’s hope better sense prevails… 🤞🏽

[Charlie Bilello @charliebilello]

The idea that if you ban a nuclear power they will fall in line instead of digging in may be the worst foreign policy mistake in recent history. If you want to save lives and save Ukraine from complete devastation stop escalating and help find a way for them to save face.

[Saurabh Shroff @SaurabhShroff]

@SeekingClarity5 @benparr @semil @Itwitius Yes the biggest and most organised navigable waterworks…. Which makes a hell of a lot of difference to logistics costs and reach.

[Saurabh Shroff @SaurabhShroff]

@benparr @semil Highly recommend reading Prisoners of Geography by @Itwitius
USA’s location is like winning the genetic lottery. Makes it extremely difficult for outsiders to invade or interfere.

[Javier Blas @JavierBlas]

UAE abstains at the UN Security Council, refusing to back U.S. resolution against Russia. Quite a moment for an American ‘ally’ in the Middle East. Lots of spillover into oil politics and OPEC+, where Abu Dhabi and Moscow are allies #OOTT #Ukraine #UAE

[6529 @punk6529]

1/ There are no other constitutional rights in substance without freedom to transact

Being meaning to write this for 6 months, but the Canadian response to the trucker protests is illustrating this so vividly, that today is the day.

[Saurabh Shroff @SaurabhShroff]

Reputation over a few millions more! Priorities

[Dan Rapaport @Daniel_Rapaport]

Spoke with Rory McIlroy about the Saudi league this morning, and he reiterated his stance against it with some pretty compelling reasoning:

https://t.co/OZ6hgjgNbY